


I never want this to end

by Star_Nymph



Series: To The Moon and Back [14]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Asperger Inquisitor, Asperger Syndrome, F/M, Fennecs (Dragon Age), Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-10
Updated: 2018-05-10
Packaged: 2019-05-05 01:34:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,325
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14606286
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Star_Nymph/pseuds/Star_Nymph
Summary: From the Drabble prompt: "I want this to never end…“ from kagetsukai on tumblr.





	I never want this to end

**Author's Note:**

> This part of a bunch of short fics/drabbles I've kept on my tumblr and haven't put on here. Sorry if I'm spamming ya'll, it'll be over soon.
> 
> If you have any comments or helpful tips please feel free to write something. I’ll definitely appreciate the feedback! Thank you for reading!

“Where are you going, love?”

“To the water.”

Eurydice slipped from his grasp with the ease and quiet of the wind and padded from their little nest in the grass to the creek’s pebble-lined shore. She gathered the length of her skirt and tied it high on her hips as she descended into the shallow water, clear as flawless glass, and bent to put her hands into the sandy bed below. Cullen drank the sight of her in, content to rest his back against this old willowed tree and sit among the remnants of their picnic, an adoring smile playing on his face.

The crisp babble of the water and the chirp of birds surrounded him, luring him into a peaceful almost numb state. The Emerald Graves hadn’t been his first choice for an outing. He preferred the rolling hills and swaying grain of the Hinterlands—the familiarity of something that might have been his home once upon a time—than to the dense confusing woods where enemies could make themselves one with shadows. But Eurydice had insisted in her inflexible way, saying that she wanted to bring him to some place that reminded her of home, as he had done for her. It was not in him to pursue her otherwise, not when she held his hands in hers and made his heart dance for her whisper.

As a precaution, he took his sword with him as he went with her, hand in hand. He had not used it once.

Now he lay at this creek, eyelids commanding to be closed, feeling afloat with a special sort of calm—the sort you only get in the twilight of sleep when the world is blocked out and your dreams have ended and there is only you and only the touch of what holds you to existence—and Cullen couldn’t help but think of how beautiful this place was.

But he thought that as he watched Eurydice bath herself in streams of sunlight through green leaves, the water reflecting waves on her skin, her soaking her hands full of scattering, shiny stones.  

Maybe it wasn’t the forest, maybe it was just what was around her, enhancing everything she was.

Eurydice dropped the stones, one by one, back into the creek and Cullen counted each one until sound and image was just a sensation and he was falling away, far into bliss.

He wasn’t aware of how long he dozed off for or that Eurydice had left the creek, distracted by a sudden movement in the undergrowth. He was floating in a dreamless state, foot half in the Fade and half in this world, and only vaguely did he know of the things happening around him. There was the brush of course fur over his cheek. The press of wetness and cold against his nose.

He grumbles, curling into himself, and swats it away.

There is a laugh—it swirls in his veins and swells his chest.

The fur returns to his face, pressing insistently. Something softly bops his eyes and forehead, catching his hair around it, and then—

Ow.

Ow.

Sharp—pointy—it’s squeaking in his ear— _OW_!

“What in— _Shhi—_!” Cullen nearly smacked his skull into the tree trying to get away from the claws making swaps at his face, his hands going up to get the furry beast off of him. The fennec in question appeared to be even more rattled than him, keening as its little arms and feet frail about, squirm about as its tail whipped him in the face.

He heard hiccupping, pitched laughter, the kind that came belly deep and shook the whole body, as the fennec wiggled its way back into the arms of the trickster that had startled them both. Eurydice fell back on her heels with a barely contained snort—something that Cullen would have never even dreamed he would ever live to hear—and cradled the poor creature as it hid its face in her hair and neck.

“Ena’vun—he only wanted to say ‘hello’!” She said and he saw that under all her disarrayed hair, she was smiling—no, grinning. Truly, unabashedly  _grinning_. “Is he not cute? I love him.”

Cullen floundered, his eyes drifting between her face and the fennec, his brain slow on processing what he was seeing. How many times had he seen her look like that? Maker, he didn’t know—he’s caught her smiles before, hidden beneath her hands, shyly covered by her hair or a blanket, never given full view. And a laugh?

He doesn’t remember her ever laughing; at least not like this.

“I…uh, I…” He couldn’t take his eyes away from her mouth, from the way she was giggling, scratching her finger between the fennec’s ears. “D-don’t… _ha_ , don’t you have enough pets at Skyhold?” His own lips turned upwards, intoxicated by joyful laughter and cooing.

She shook her head. “No. Never enough. I do not have a fennec. We could— _oh_!” The fennec arched in her arms and sprang away from her into Cullen’s lap. It tapped its paws against his legs but when he reached to grab it, the small creature darted away and jumped into the basket where the rest of their food for the day was. “Hey! Get out of there, you mangy little—” Cullen went to fish the thing out but the fennec snapped at his fingers, spurring quite the undignified squawk out of the Commander.

The two stared each other down, wild determination against practiced order, but when Cullen blinked, he knew he had lost. Still, he tried to take hold of the fennec’s tail as it grabbed one of their better cheeses. The result was him toppling over on his face, the tail smacking his hand away, and the fennec running off into the forest with some damn good Ferelden cheddar.

He was pretty sure he heard the fennec laughing at him but no: that was just his lover, rolling on her back and having a laughing fit at his expense.

Cullen braced himself on his arms as he pushed himself up and fixed Eurydice with a betrayed look. “Are you having fun?”

Eurydice answered with a snort, clamping her hands over her mouth to try and subdue it, and he was pretty sure she said something. A muffled “your face” maybe but it was drowned out by another bout of giggles as Cullen took her back her foot and dragged her, squirming about, into his lap.

“That was expensive cheese, Inquisitor. I expect proper reimbursement for you, as it was your charge that stole from me.” Cullen said while he brushed her bangs out of her face; she was flush, pink as a strawberry, and then her eyes sat staring his chest, he could see them right with mirth.

Eurydice’s eyes twitched as her fingers twirled in her hair and she moved closer, pecking him on the side of the mouth. “There. Payment.” She teased as she wrapped her arms around his neck and hugged him tightly.

Maker. Sweet, holy Maker.

Cullen took in a sudden breath as the scent of her filled his lungs and he held her just as tightly, nuzzling his face into the side of her head. He loved her. He loved her so much it truly thought he wouldn’t be able to contain it—that his chest was about the crack open, unable to take the strength of rapidly beating heart.

He chuckled, watery and weak, as he ran his fingers through her hair and said, “I want this to never end…” he sighed—half to her, half to the Maker, half to Time, praying for a little more of it.

“What?”

“Nothing…” He pulled back and kissed her forehead and then her smile, because he didn’t know long he’d have that or any of this—but he was going to take all that she offered, because it was too good to be wasted.


End file.
